The University of Wisconsin is currently undergoing a federal inspection of all laboratories containing biological agents that could be used for weapons.

Federal inspectors are investigating the security surrounding toxins such as anthrax to ensure that the substances do not fall into hands that would made them into biological or chemical weapons.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is inspecting research security on college campuses nationwide. Ed Curlett, a USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service spokesman, said most universities have chemicals that could be used for biological weapons.

“We ensure that a lab can safeguard its biological agents,” Curlett said. “We wanted to keep track of them in the United States because we don’t want agents to fall in the hands of people who would use them for [purposes] other than research.”

Federal regulation passed in 2002 requires all universities to register a select list of dangerous elements with the government and pass safety inspections in order to continue researching chemicals that could potentially become weapons.

Tim Mulcahy, the associate vice chancellor of research policy, said UW is also undergoing both safety and security inspections by the government that could last until the end of the month.

“The site visit is part of getting [security] clearance and part of the process to get the university cleared,” Mulcahy said.

Part of the USA Patriot Act stipulates that any researcher from countries said to be aiding or abetting terrorists is not allowed to handle biological agents in the United States, regardless of a clean record. Countries that are banned from contact with the select biological agents are Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

Mulcahy said other international researchers are subject to the same background checks as a U.S. citizen, including fingerprinting and background checks by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

When Congress passed new research regulations in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, some scientists grumbled about the added strain on their work and the fracturing of the global scientific community, while others voluntarily submitted future scientific publications to the government for censorship.

Mulcahy said UW instituted security precautions well before the federal government required them, however. UW’s cost of security regulations has reached $100,000, he said, without any U.S. aid in paying the bill.

“We’ve worked with these agents safely for decades,” Mulcahy said. “The research we do is in the best national interest.”

UW researchers have made new discoveries regarding anthrax detection in the last two years. In October 2001, the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research found a “docking structure” that anthrax uses to break into cells.

The discovery advanced understanding of how anthrax kills host cells, and scientists developed a genetically engineered anthrax strain that could block anthrax from entering new cells.

Other select agents on the federal government’s list of potential biological weapons are botulinum neurotoxins, which have been researched at UW, various encephalitis viruses, and sheep, goat and camel pox viruses.